HerVampireLover (5 page)

“Will I always be in danger from the Grangers?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so. They will stop at nothing to kill you. However, if I were to turn you into a vampire, at least you would have powers to protect yourself and our children.”

Cat grew cold. “What did you say?”

“You will be able to protect yourself and our children.”

That’s what she thought she heard. Cat froze. “I can’t get pregnant.” Her head began to spin. “I have two lazy ovaries that don’t produce eggs.”

“Cat, you can, and will have my children one day. Making love to a vampire has a healing effect. Any ills or ailments disappear. My life force will awaken your dormant womb.” He gave her a pointed look. “If a vampire can turn a mortal, why can’t you believe we can create life from
lazy ovaries
, as you put it.”

His mouth twitched, but Cat didn’t see the humor in it. She rose, choking on a sob. “Stop it! Don’t…don’t say anymore.” If what he said was true, he could give her the biggest gift in the world.
A child. Children! Plural
. Cat couldn’t believe it and she placed a hand on her belly.

She turned to face him. “Would my child be a vampire?”

“
Our
child,” he said, rising to meet her. “And I don’t know.” He gave her a grave look. “Cat, we must leave. My home is in New York. It’s very safe.”

A nervous laugh escaped her. “Hold on there. I’m not going anywhere with you. I…I don’t even know you.”

He placed two strong hands on her shoulders and drew her toward him. “You
do
know me. You know my touch, my love, my heart. That will suffice for now until you feel love for me. I have waited over three hundred years. I can wait a few more days.”

She wanted to laugh. “You expect me to fall in love with you in a few days?”

“Yes.”

She was stunned at his level of arrogance. “And how do you expect to accomplish that?”

“By helping you remember. Your love for me is within you—you just need to remember our past.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe in reincarnation, Tobias. I’m Cat, not Seraphina. As much as I admit I’m wildly attracted to you, looks and great sex alone are not enough to make me fall in love with anyone. Not anymore.” She drew her shoulders up. “I already tried that with a gorgeous attorney, and that ended in heartache.”

“He wasn’t right for you, Cat.”

“Oh, and you
are
?” she retorted, angrily. “You’re a vampire, you drink blood, and you kill people.”

“I’ve never killed anyone in my damned life,” he said harshly. “Even when I came face to face with Seraphina’s father a few months before he died, I didn’t kill him. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I let the plague consume him.” He paused, his expression darkening. “I’m not saying all vampires are good. We’re just like humans. There’s good and bad in every race.”

A muscle worked along the strong column of his throat, and Cat knew she’d angered him, but she didn’t care. In the short time since she’d met Tobias, someone tried to kill her, he practically raped her, and she was going crazy. She chewed her lower lip, instantly regretting her thought about the rape. He hadn’t forced himself on her, she admitted reluctantly. He
had
stopped. She couldn’t, however, forget how her body reacted to his touch. Her face flamed with a heated rush of shame.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see myself falling in love with you. Vampires are not my thing,” she said.

“I’m a man, dammit!” he ground out. “I’m not an animal.” His eyes glowed ominously, his beautiful mouth thinned menacingly.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her against his body. Cat gasped and tried to push him away, but he was immoveable.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, frightened, realizing too late that she had pushed him too far.

“I am going to make you feel,” he said roughly, bringing his head down to hers.

Their lips met and Cat froze, willing her body to remain stiff and unresponsive.

He ran his hands over her back, drawing her closer to his hard frame. Cat closed her eyes and tried to take her mind off what his kiss was doing to her. She fought the weakness in her limbs, the flutter in the pit of her stomach, the heady warmth his mouth incited.

Tobias forced her lips apart and crushed her body against his. Her resolve weakened and she wound her hands around his shoulders, moaning as her body dissolved into a pool of need.

With no strength left to fight him, she returned his kiss fiercely and raked her nails over his shoulders up to the back of his head. He stiffened violently and groaned as he pressed her lower body against his. He was aroused and she whimpered against his steely erection.

Her fantasy man was real. She was in his arms and didn’t want to let go.
She wanted him.

“You always had me, Cat,” he murmured against her mouth.

She pulled her head back and gasped. “Do you read minds?”

“Only yours. When vampires mate with their one true love, they mate for life, and a connection that transcends the physical and emotional, binds them for all eternity. Their hearts beat as one. Their minds work as one. Their souls live as one.”

She grew nervous. “Does that mean you’ll be reading my mind all the time? I’ll never have any privacy?”

“Only if I wish it, and as I wanted to find out how you were feeling just now, I decided to take a small look.”

She gaped at him, ignoring the flash of amusement mingling with desire on his handsome face. “Well, don’t do it again,” she said. “I don’t want you to make it a habit looking into my thoughts.” Was she actually contemplating being with him?

He took her hand and brought her to stand in front of the fire, then pulled her down gently to sit next to him on the thick, burgundy rug. The firelight illuminated his eyes and his skin and she tore her gaze away from his devastatingly handsome face.

“I cannot tell you how relieved I am that I have found you, Cat.”

She was mesmerized by the warm glow around them. “You are?”

“I am.”

This time, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his. “You’re not hypnotizing me again, are you?”

“No. Why?”

“Never mind.”

He placed his hand around her shoulder and squeezed gently. “You’re tense,” he murmured. Still aroused, his eyes was blazing with desire, and Cat knew she was losing the battle.

“Tobias, what’s it like living forever?” She tried taking her mind off what he was doing to her shoulder—more precisely, what he wanted to do to her. It hung thickly in the air between them.
The need. The passion. The desire
.

“Lonely.”

“How old are you?”

“Four hundred years old.”

He played with her hair and ran his hand down her arm, grazing the side of her breast. She gasped. “How…how did you turn into a vampire?” He was weakening her.

“My brother was turned first in a raid. We were very close and he couldn’t bear the thought of watching me grow old and die so
he
turned me. Our parents died when we were very young. He was older than me and I always looked to him as a father.” He paused. “Cat, you need to be sure you want this. Being a vampire is very lonely. Any bonds or ties you form with people go away and you remain behind, alive, missing them.”

“Like you with Seraphina.”

“Yes. Like me with Seraphina, but I found you,” he added quietly.

She ignored the last part. “What…what are you going to do if I decide not to turn into a vampire? Won’t you remain young, as you are now, and I’ll turn old and eventually die?”

His face turned grim. “I will not live without you, Cat. If you decide to stay human, I will be with you, watch you grow old, and, right after you die, I will walk directly into the Grangers lair and allow them to kill me.”

Cat gasped. He would die for her?
 
“You can’t do that.” The last thing she wanted was his death on her conscience, which didn’t make sense because she’d already be dead and dead people didn’t have a conscience. Cat grimaced. Her own thoughts were beginning to sound crazy.

“I will not live without you, Cat. I cannot go through what I’ve been through the past three hundred years. Grieving you, missing you, has all but destroyed me.”

She heard the anguish, the pain, the torment in his voice, and her heart began to thaw. Compassion welled in her breast for him. Despite his strength and powers, he was lonely and lost. He was six feet three inches of muscle and strength, but she sensed the young man in him, the man who lost his parents, his beloved brother, the woman he loved dearly, and all those long, lonely centuries.

She took his hand. “I’m sorry, Tobias.”

His gaze flickered to her lips and he nodded. “I know you are. You were kind three hundred years ago, as you are now.”

“Tobias, I don’t believe in reincarnation. I’m sorry. I truly am. It’s a coincidence I look like Seraphina. I don’t feel I’m her.”

“All I know is I love you, and I know in my heart you love me, still. I can feel your heart beating right now, your blood pulsing in your veins, your breath reaching out and bringing life back into my soul. A vampire can only feel this magic with their one true love. And you are my one true love.”

If only she could believe his words. Without thinking, she leaned forward and said softly, “Seraphina was a lucky girl.” And she kissed him gently on the mouth.

It was an impulsive act, a gesture of warmth. An act of compassion for a man who had suffered and lost, but the moment she felt him tense and heard his quick intake of breath, she knew she’d made a mistake.

Chapter Six

He pushed her back on the thick rug and locked his mouth over hers. Her body melted as he deepened his kiss.

She was lost as she closed her eyes and welcomed his embrace. His kiss swept her to a place where she felt they were the last people on earth. Nothing stood between them. Not time, not the Grangers, not death—nothing. For a split second, she realized she could fall for a man like this.

Yet, how could she feel so strong for a man she had just met yesterday?

She heard the fire crackling as its flames flickered and swayed, her body mirroring the sounds, flickering and swaying with each caress of his hands, each seductive draw of his kiss.

He dragged his mouth away and looked down at her, his eyes glowing like the dark embers in the fireplace. “I want to show you how we used to make love. How the vampire love is powerful and how two souls can soar together with love and ecstasy beyond the stars, and further.”

Her head was spinning.
Vampire lovemaking
? Cat was almost afraid to say
yes.
How could there be anything more sensual than what she was already experiencing with him?

“Trust me,” he said.

Her response was natural and immediate. “I trust you,” she whispered, knowing in her heart he would never do anything to hurt her.

He reached for her sweater and drew it up slowly over her head until it lay on the floor behind her, leaving her naked from the waist up. The heat from the fire warmed her flesh, but the heat in his dark gaze swallowed her up in flames.

Her jeans came off next and she lay naked on the rug.

“Are you ready?” His gaze raked her body.

“Yes.”

“Tell me you love me.”

She felt an odd headiness overcome her as she stared at his face. He was doing something strange to her again, something strange with his eyes.  Even though he sat next to her, not touching her, she felt his hands everywhere. “I…I can’t…”

His gaze darkened, his skin glowed, and an aura gleamed around him like a sheer veil. “Do you like what you’re feeling?” he asked, his dark beauty glinting with a ruthless passion she found both thrilling and frightening at the same time.

His invisible hands were on her breasts, on her belly and lower where his sensual touch made her breath catch. She arched her back and bit back a whimper. “Yes,” she gasped.

“Can you feel this?”

Simultaneously, she felt his warm tongue on her breasts and in between her legs. She stifled a scream as she writhed and moaned. “Yes. I feel it. All…all of it.”

A satisfied gleam entered his eyes. “Only true vampire love can work this magic, Cat. You feel everything because you love me.” He began to remove his clothes in quick, rough movements. “Say it. Say you love me.”

The hands she couldn’t see were everywhere, and she nearly fainted with longing. She wanted more. She wanted his
real
hands, his skin on her skin, him filling her.

He leaned over her. “I love you.”

Then she felt
his
welcome touch, flesh on flesh, his real mouth trailing hot kisses over her face, her shoulders, and her breasts. He growled, positioning himself over her opening and impaled her with one hard thrust. Cat arched her neck and cried out as she dug her nails into his shoulders. A violent tremor shot through his big frame.

“This is insane,” she whispered huskily. “We don’t even know each other.”

“This is love.” He growled into her neck. “Insanity is not knowing the difference.”

His body tightened as he moved faster, her body responding passionately to his every thrust, his every withdrawal, and with one final push, he drove himself deep inside her and groaned.

Cat splintered into a million pieces as an intense ecstasy crashed over her and she squeezed her eyes, reveling at the sheer bliss coursing through her limbs.

They lay in each other’s arms for a few moments, their sharp breaths subsiding, embracing the aftermath of their heat. He rolled onto his back, holding her firmly against his side.

“I’m too heavy,” he said.

“You’re perfect,” she whispered. He was, she thought, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks.

He wasn’t ruthless, or mean, or dangerous. He was passionate, romantic, and loving. He was sensitive and compassionate. She recalled how he hadn’t killed the heavyset man. Rather, he had knocked him out for a few days. Cat kept her eyes closed and sighed brokenly.

“You should read my latest book,
The Sex Potion,”
she said. “It’s about a lotion a man discovers that intensifies and enhances the sexual awareness between him and his girlfriend. Like the vampire love we just made.”